One of the saddest of all anomalies in this world is when non-Christians are more Christian than Christians.
For example, what are the three greatest Christian virtues? Faith, hope and charity.
Why is it that many who reject Christ and the principles of the Bible display more human love than those who profess to be Christians?
And what is the message when professing Christians are so filled with worry and distress, when thinking about the dangerous condition of the world?
Why is it that some lost people are far more calm when they are dying than the Christian who says that he is passing into the presence of his Saviour?
Why is it that some Christians are more greedy, selfish, retaliatory and grumpy than the lost?
One of the reasons that we don’t have more of an impact on society is that we don’t present the lost with anything better than what they already possess.
Sure we talk about heaven and the forgiveness of sin,
then we are often left with nothing to offer.
The number could have been 20 or 200, or not a single one.
We don’t know because Luke and the Lord didn’t address that issue for us.
That is because Christianity is not a game where analysts are keeping score and determining Heistman winners.
It doesn’t directly concern us who is a child of God and who isn’t.
The question is not whether that other person is or isn’t a Christian; what is more important is whether we are ourselves
Sometimes the Lord reveals the spiritual condition of another person in order to teach us things, but more often than not, there isn’t anything new to teach.
No one can say if any of Paul’s guards or fellow prisoners became Christians.
But as we have mentioned a couple of times, every single person on board that ship should have recognized Paul’s faith, hope and tranquility in the midst of the potential disaster.
He was definitely different than the mariners who were trying to flee like rats from a sinking ship.
And he actually cared about the welfare of the rest of the people on board.
Although he may have been doing his part to keep the ship afloat, it wasn’t with the same foreboding that most of the others expressed.
Like Paul, Christians should be different from the world,
but also in the way that they live and the demeanor that they have.
But as I have suggested, many times the lost look more like Christians than the Christians do.
And sometimes they are just very good at displaying basic human goodness.
Although we all come into this world as sinners, we are not animals.
And though there are some ways in which we are all barbarians, there is no reason why even the lost have to behave like barbarians.
“And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.”
I hope that everyone here knows that “hospitality” is NOT an UNCOMMON word in the New Testament.
We are commanded, exhorted, encouraged and exampled to be hospitable or to become more hospitable.
Listen to Paul’s practical exhortations as he concluded the Book of Romans:
Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.
Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.
Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
To Timothy and Titus, Paul suggested certain character traits when it came to looking for potential pastors:
“A lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, (and) temperate …”
“But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.
And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging.
As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”
And when we see good things like these displayed in the life of unbelievers, it should impel us all the more to follow the Apostles’ exhortation.
The barbarians on the Island of Melita were hospitable and kind towards the survivors of the shipwreck.
Let me share some of the short and simple thoughts on hospitality which we can see here.
All the air is washed out of that fluff and fur.
There are few things that look sillier or more pitiful than a nearly drowned Persian cat.
Well, in some ways the people from Paul’s ship washed ashore in that same sort of way.
There was the fat-cat owner of the ship with nothing but the very wet clothes on his back.
And there was the bully among the sailors who made some of the younger crew-members cower in fear.
Both of them looked no different from the men that they tormented.
As survivors, of the 276 people on board that ship, there were none that were any different from the next.
They had all been stripped of their wealth, their pride, their strength and their dignity.
And though they escaped the vengeance of the sea, without some help any of them could yet die from the cold and from the present rain.
But when the barbarians of Malta found them, they went to work to meet their needs.
They built a very hospitable fire.
Are you picturing a nice roaring campfire in the shelter of the pines, with everyone sitting there singing “Coom-by-ya, Lord, Coom-by-ya”?
You probably better erase that image.
If they were still outside, you need to remember that the rain was still driving down hard.
And then how could an average sized campfire warm or help nearly 300 people?
This may have been a colossal-sized bonfire.
And if it was outside then it might have required an Herculean effort to get going in the first place.
And the fuel must have come from the islander’s sheltered sheds and dry wood bins.
Remember that the Maltese didn’t directly owe these survivors anything.
It was the need of the hour which drove them to be hospitable.
A corollary question might be: What WOULD you DO to help them?
At my house there isn’t food enough to feed that many people, and there aren’t that many beds.
Neither is there enough money in my wallet or my bank account.
But I have a telephone, and you have a telephone; maybe together we could come up with something.
Did the people who first discovered these people have means of putting them up in the Holiday Inn Express?
No, but they could build a fire.
And at that point in time, that was the greatest blessing those wet, cold men could want.
Hospitality isn’t about out-doing what some other person might be able to do to help.
It’s not about going on TV and showing the reporters your $10,000 check for Katrina relief efforts.
It’s about doing what you can as an individual within the resources that the Lord has given you.
Your hospitality might be nothing more than a warm fire, but a warm fire might be exactly what is needed.
In fact that kind of behavior will bring down the wrath and rebuke of an Apostle.
“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”
Prayer may be Christian, Biblical and even spiritual, but prayer is not being hospitable.
Hospitality involves real heat and real food in the midst of a real storm.
Hospitality is practical.
In the case of the Melitians they probably couldn’t see any way that these men could ever return the favor that they were being given.
How quickly did they recognize that some, if not the majority, were prisoners?
What are criminals going to do to return this favor?
And did they think that the man who lost his ship and his cargo had other ships and lots of wealth?
They didn’t build this fire thinking that one day these men would build fires for them some day.
And neither should we.
“Out on the highways and byways of life, Many are the weary and sad;
Acts 20 contains Paul’s emotional last visit with the elders from the church in Ephesus.
Just before they knelt and prayed together and before saying good-bye Paul said,
I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel. Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.
I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Grace or not, the words are true: “It IS more blessed to give than to receive.”
It was grace, not a reward, which is seen in those healings.
Paul was going to finish his trip to Rome whether those people helped him or not.
And the Lord may have cured those diseases whether that was the case or not.
There may not be any direct relationship between the two.
But we do read of both things in same paragraph of the Word of God.
Have you ever showed a kindness to a stranger and had that person become a friend?
Couldn’t that be considered a reward, or a result, of your kindness?
Sometimes a simple smile of thanksgiving can be a huge reward.
I suppose over the 40 years that I have been a Christian
for which there was not a thing that we could do to adequately repay the giver,
but they were more than satisfied by seeing our joy and hearing our thanks.
One reward for hospitality might be some eventual return of the same kind of hospitality.
Another might be even greater, like the healing of sick child free of charge.
But other rewards could be as simple as a hearty hand-shake and a big, honest smile.
It may be impossible to say that something or other was a reward for an earlier act of kindness.
But I really like the words of Galatians 6:
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
Hospitality has never saved the soul of a single hospitable person.
But on the other hand perhaps the hospitality of a Christian has been a part of the plan to bring the grace of God to the recipient’s heart.
“Let love be without dissimulation. Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.